By Christina Broadbent
christina@newsroom.byu.edu
Cleaning inspections have left some students feeling picked on when it comes to picking up.
'I feel like it doesn't matter whether the apartment is clean or not, but whether the management can fail us or not,' said Brian Thompson, 24, a graduate student from Charleston, S. C., living in Riviera Apartments.
Riviera management charges a five-dollar fee for each job not completed according to guidelines outlined in a cleaning inspection packet given to each apartment before the check.
Tyler Hammond, 21, a sophomore from Las Vegas, Nev., expressed frustration with his experience with cleaning checks at the Riviera.
'We worked for four hours and it was definitely cleaner than when we moved in,' Hammond said. 'but we failed.'
Dave Strom, 22, a junior from Severna Park, Md., also said his apartment was not clean when he moved to the Riviera in August.
'We had to clean the apartment ourselves when we moved in,' Strom said. 'But in cleaning checks, they will fail you for tiny details.'
Dave Freeman, president of Glenwood Intermountain Properties, which manages the Riviera, Raintree Apartments, Glenwood Apartments, and University Villa, said it is realistically impossible to have apartments completely clean at any given time.
'Most student housing is never completely empty,' Freeman said.
Apartment complexes usually have one day in between contracts, as opposed to the weeks it would require to ensure a perfectly clean apartment, he said.
'We're not trying to punish people with cleaning checks,' Freeman said. 'We just want to make sure apartments are kept in reasonable condition.'
Charlie Pahulu, 22, a sophomore from Palm Bay, Flo., said he would like to be learning to take care of an apartment without regulation from management.
'Eventually we will have to figure out how to keep an apartment clean,' Pahulu said. 'I don't see why we don't start now.'
Rebecca Martin, an employee at King Henry Apartments, said most students pass the check.
'Some people get mad when they don't pass because they have different standards of what is considered dirty,' Martin said. 'If they are there, we show them what the problem is and how to fix it.'
Many students are not home when the cleaning check is conducted during the day.
'If you're not home when they do the check, you're dead,' said Jeremy Blackwell, 22, a junior from Rosavelt, Utah, living in University Villa. 'They will charge the five-dollar fee for dust on the window sill.'
Jason Gray, manager of University Villa, said the main reason some students fail the cleaning check is they just don't take the time to clean.